Today’s oceans are a tumult of engine roar, artificial sonar and seismic blasts that make it impossible for marine creatures to hunt or communicate. We could make it stop, so why don’t we?

Today, ocean waters are a tumult of engine noise, sonar and seismic blasts. Sediments from human activities on land cloud the water. Industrial chemicals befuddle the sense of smell of aquatic animals. We are severing the sensory links that gave the world its animal diversity. Whales cannot hear the echolocating pulses that locate their prey, breeding fish cannot find one another amid the noise and turbidity, and the social connections among crustaceans are weakened as their chemical messages and sonic thrums are lost in a haze of human pollution.

Here off the coast of San Juan Island, the whales’ voices were like fine silk stitched into a thick denim of propeller and motor sound, clicks and whistles sometimes audible but often disappearing into the tight weave of engines. The dozen boats gave off throbs, whirs and shudders as they tracked the whales, combustion engines swaddling the whales in an inescapable, constricting wrap.

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The New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor, a trade and logistics passage jointly built by western Chinese provincial regions and Singapore, recently launched a new transport route, creating the first direct link to the Indian Ocean. The route's first outbound rail-sea transport freight train left southwest China's Chongqing municipality on April 2.

It will first reach the Laotian capital Vientiane by railway and pass through Thailand via highways before arriving at Myanmar's Yangon, its final destination, a news agency reported.

The new freight service is estimated to take about 10 to 14 days to reach Yangon, cutting the logistics time by more than 20 days compared to the traditional route that goes to eastern coastal cities via the Yangtze river, and then out to sea, according to the corridor's operator.

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Global warming supercharged one of the most destructive tropical storm seasons on record in the South Indian Ocean, an international science team said on Monday.

In a new study, the researchers focused on deadly rain and flooding from five storms that raked Madagascar and southeastern Africa in quick succession during February and March 2022.

The research by World Weather Attribution showed that human-caused global warming intensified the rain from the tropical systems, and makes such damaging storms in the vulnerable region more likely. The storms killed at least 310 people, destroyed more than 45,000 homes and displaced about half a million people. 

The 2021-2022 season in the South Indian Ocean (Nov. 15, 2021 to April 30, 2022), especially February, was “one of the most active on record by most metrics,” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s global tropical storm database. 

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The GenOcean campaign will raise public awareness on the power of ocean knowledge and science to address ocean degradation, encouraging individuals to take action to restore and protect the ocean.

GenOcean will revolutionise the way we think and act towards the ocean, building strength in unity and a collective approach to ocean protection and restoration based on the latest science.

Mission

• GenOcean will drive people to take simple actions in their daily lives towards restoring and protecting the ocean.
• GenOcean will grow awareness in the public around ocean issues, communicated through people-led storytelling.
• GenOcean will build knowledge and understanding in the public of ocean issues through ocean science.

Background

In 2017, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the United Nations Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) (‘the Ocean Decade’) to stimulate ocean science and knowledge generation and thus reverse declines in the state of the ocean system while catalysing new opportunities for sustainable ocean use.

The campaign will generate mass engagement in protecting and sustainably managing the ocean through science-driven solutions and provide a platform for committed individuals to tell their own story, influencing many others to take action.

GenOcean presents the opportunity for people to understand and appreciate the ocean as a key part of the solution to the planet’s sustainability and climate crises.

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A new study has shown how fish influence ocean ecosystems in coastal regions, revealing for the first time how they circulate nutrients and oxygen around the waters when they spawn. This process is key to keeping the ecosystems running.

Oceans are made up of multiple layers, ranging from lighter, warmer waters at the top to denser, cooler waters at the bottom. Ocean mixing is vital to move heat, oxygen, nutrients and pollutants between different layers and therefore plays a major role in how ecosystems sustain life.

Although it is well established that winds and tides supply the bulk of the energy that drives mixing, the contribution made by swimming organisms has not been understood -- until now.

In this new study, a team led by the University of Southampton spent fifteen days monitoring water turbulence in the Ría de Pontevedra, a bay in the north-west coast of the Iberian Peninsula. The researchers used an instrument called microstructure profiler, which measures variations in the ocean current speed and temperature over very small distances.

The results, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, showed that increased levels of turbulence and mixing occurred every night, similar to turbulence caused by a major storm, despite the weather staying calm throughout the study.

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Coral reefs in remote or protected areas can recover quickly after mass coral bleaching events, new research shows.

University of Exeter researchers are investigating "reef carbonate budgets" -- the net production or erosion of reef structure over time.

To study the impacts of climate change on reef functions, they examined 12 reefs in the remote Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean before and after the global coral bleaching event in 2015/16.

In 2018, the formerly thriving reefs were "shrinking," with coral cover and carbonate production down by more than 70% and erosion processes exceeding new coral growth.

When the researchers returned in 2021, all reefs were on a trajectory of recovery, although the speed varied from place to place.

Where key coral species returned quickly and the underlying physical reef structure had stayed intact, reefs showed a rapid transition back to positive growth only six years after the bleaching event.

Find out more here .